


one notch below bedlam

by ghoulgy



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bathing/Washing, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Depression, Haircuts, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, perceived one-sided attraction, sorry about these tags i dont know whats happening either, train surfing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulgy/pseuds/ghoulgy
Summary: One night, he comes home with a tooth missing and they don’t say a word. He comes back the next night without a fingernail on his left hand and they lock themselves in their room to talk.About him, about how he’s a problem, about how they’ll get rid of him someday.Seungkwan lives a full life in his head where he smokes and doesn’t jump trains and his two best friends love him back.





	one notch below bedlam

**Author's Note:**

> ive been workin on this for like two weeks now! this is obviously me practicing different ways of telling a story because i feel i always get too bogged down in the details

[I want to be

One notch below bedlam, like a radio without a dial.

Wide open, so everything floods in at once.

And sealed tight, so nothing escapes. Not even time,

 Which should curl in on itself and loop around like smoke.]

Tracy K. Smith- _My God, It's Full of Stars_

 

The first time Seokmin gives Seungkwan a haircut, he’s using scissors that lack a blade and Soonyoung is writing his times tables on a napkin in the back.

 

It’s Seokmin’s birthday, or his last day of kindergarten, or some other milestone set for six year olds. The edges of the memory are fuzzy, but the rest of it is still there.

 

One pair of zig-zag scissors. Two pencils. Three kids who outgrow their clothes too quickly.

 

Soonyoung brags about elementary school. Seungkwan pouts. Seokmin goes in and attempts to snip off the bangs that tickle Seungkwan’s eyelids. He is not successful.

 

“C’mon,” Seungkwan whines. His knuckles are white, hands bunched in the fabric of his own overalls. “Just get it over with. Do it.”

 

“I’m trying,” Seokmin says, tongue poking out from between his lips. The face of a child too entranced with their own work to be bothered with the consequences. “These work on paper. Maybe they’re not made for hair.”

 

“Duh.” Soonyoung looks up from his napkin to send a knowing smile Seungkwan’s way. “Only the ladies that work at the salon can cut hair. They’ve got the scissors for it.”

 

Seungkwan watches Seokmin snip fruitlessly at his bangs for a moment more before he sighs and throws himself to the floor dramatically. “I guess Seungkwan will have to be blind for the rest of his life.”

 

Seungkwan is rather resigned to his fate.

 

Then, at least, he didn’t know better.

 

It’s Soonyoung who pilfers a real pair of scissors from his father’s dresser two days later. It’s Seokmin with the blade pressed close to Seungkwan’s forehead, tongue out in concentration.

 

The first snip brings Seungkwan’s bangs to the middle of his forehead, though he can’t see what exactly they look like.

 

Seokmin gasps and presses a cold towel to Seungkwan’s face quickly. Soonyoung sounds far more pleased.

 

“You did it,” Soonyoung says. Seungkwan can hear scissors snipping a few more times at the air directly in front of his face.

 

Seungkwan’s mother is not as impressed.

 

He doesn’t see Seokmin or Soonyoung again for three weeks.

 

 

“You look ridiculous,” Soonyoung is saying, but Seungkwan is far more interested in whatever episode of Naruto Seokmin has playing in the background.

 

He’s seven weeks into the sixth grade and admittedly, he shouldn’t be as into Naruto as he is. Neither should Seokmin. They’re almost teenagers. Or something like that.

 

“Seungkwan, you need a haircut.” Soonyoung runs his fingers through Seungkwan’s bangs and stares at the strands between his fingers.

 

“Don’t have the time,” Seungkwan scoffs. Like he knows what not having any time is like.

 

“I can do it for you,” Seokmin speaks up, his eyes still glued to the TV.

 

Soonyoung giggles, his cheeks turning red at the edges. Seungkwan watches his expression change with wonder, the light in his eyes becoming more evident with every second. Seungkwan’s been around him for long enough to know what trouble looks like.

 

“Let me get the scissors.” Soonyoung pats Seungkwan’s cheek and darts off into the kitchen.

 

The second time Seokmin cuts Seungkwan’s hair, they’re watching Naruto and Soonyoung is waiting for disaster.

 

It’s not that much different from the last time, except for the fact that Seokmin holds scissors that work.

 

It’s four o’clock. Seungkwan squeezes his eyes shut and shivers when the blade is pressed to his forehead.

 

“Do it,” he says.

 

So, Seokmin does.

 

 

Seungkwan watches Seokmin kiss Soonyoung through the fence behind their high school.

 

There’s something there, deep in his gut that turns over with every passing second. Seokmin’s hands cradle Soonyoung’s head and he’s smiling and _oh, god_ they’re happy.

 

Seungkwan shouldn’t be watching. But he is. And the longer he observes the more he feels like the floor has disappeared from beneath his feet.

 

Seokmin thumbs at Soonyoung’s jawline, Soonyoung giggles and they’re spinning counterclockwise around in Seungkwan’s head. Spinning, they like to hang out alone a lot, spinning, it’s a wonder they kept Seungkwan around at all.

 

This is a lot like heartbreak, Seungkwan knows that much. Knows the scissors scraping along the inside of his skull are trying to tell him something specific, are trying to choke out a message that sounds something like _the wanting was the bad part._

 

His bangs obscure his field of vision.

 

Seungkwan imagines a universe where he’s got a pack of cigarettes available to burn his own skin with, a universe where he can burn himself up from the lungs out.

 

Seokmin’s laugh carries across the courtyard. Seungkwan’s intestines twist up tight in his belly, his internal organs all give up at once.

 

When he gets home, scissors sit shiny on his desk. Seungkwan considers cutting his aorta open and letting all the poison inside leak out onto his desk. But that would be too dramatic. Instead, uses them for the only purpose of theirs he’s ever been fond of.

 

“Nice haircut, Boo.” Soonyoung teases the next day, looking as perfect as he ever has.

 

Seokmin stares straight through Seungkwan and into his chest.

 

The scissors scrape against his skull. Seungkwan reminds himself to say nothing in return.

 

 

Seungkwan takes to surfing trains after he graduates, while he’s living the months between _graduation_ and _being a productive member of society._ No one watches. He likes it that way.

 

He learns quickly that hesitation means broken bones, means scrapes, means a feeling above the baseline. Something more than normal.

 

The easiest part about it all is that all you have to fucking do is jump.

 

He comes in late to work three days in a row. Mingyu asks him twice about the bags under his eyes. He chooses not to answer.

 

Maybe it’s a form of attention seeking, not telling anyone the reason behind the bruises. He enjoys that Soonyoung pouts when he spots a new one, how Seokmin prods at the centers of each dark mark with wonder.

 

They’d hate him if they knew. They’d hate him if they knew a lot of things.

 

One night, he comes home with a tooth missing and they don’t say a word. He comes back the next night without a fingernail on his left hand and they lock themselves in their room to _talk_.

 

About him, about how he’s a problem, about how they’ll get rid of him someday.

 

Seungkwan lives a full life in his head where he smokes and doesn’t jump trains and his two best friends love him back.

 

 

Years later, Seokmin has a pair of scissors in his hand again. Soonyoung stands behind him with his arms crossed. The first snip sees Seungkwan’s bangs falling to the floor of the too-white bathroom in Seokmin’s room, strands cluttering up a floor that hasn’t seen anything of the sort in weeks. Seokmin’s fingers trail up the side of Seungkwan’s face, holding his hair between two fingers as he cuts away the split ends, the pieces of Seungkwan’s soul that sit too exposed.

 

Soonyoung has a hand on Seungkwan’s shoulder now, he smiles easily, pinches a cheek, finds the parts of Seungkwan that feel too real and reflects them back in his eyes.

 

It’s eleven at night, not that time means much of anything to Seungkwan anymore. The air is heavy, Seungkwan can feel Seokmin’s hand ghosting across the outside of his thigh, but never really landing anywhere, movement a perpetual question.

 

Seungkwan counts the days in his head, thinks about all the times they’ve ended up just like this. How it’s never felt this heavy.

 

It’s precarious, this balance they have.

 

Seungkwan can see the thoughts racing through Seokmin’s brain like they’re being projected onto his face.

 

“Do it already,” Seungkwan whispers, eyes trained on Seokmin’s lips, wishing, fucking wishing this would all happen faster.

 

Seokmin cuts Seungkwan’s hair. Soonyoung stands in the doorway and becomes larger than life.

 

 

Half of a boy, half of half of a human being. So close to something real that it hurts. Scissors that cut deep, that cut out the parts no one wants. Seungkwan spends two summers human-adjacent.

 

There was something there, before, in his head. Something that played back the bad parts, that unwound his life and then tangled it back up again. A pair of scissors to cut away all the falsehoods. A pair of scissors to cut away all the good parts.

 

His professors eat up his half assed excuses.

 

He feels less and less like a person every day.

 

 

Seungkwan surfs trains in the mornings. Seokmin and Soonyoung watch from the ground and chatter about the jumps Seungkwan can and can’t make.

 

They don’t, not really. Seokmin and Soonyoung sleep in their upper east side apartment and dream about things like hurricanes and spinning tops.

 

Two times, Seungkwan’s hands barely catch on the sides of the cargo train going who knows fucking where. He feels something in his feet when he makes a jump, feels something in his chest when he thinks about how worried Seokmin and Soonyoung would be if they knew what he was up to.

 

The care is imaginary. He knows Soonyoung and Seokmin cease to think of him the moment they can no longer perceive him.

 

 _You could die,_ fake Soonyoung tuts.

 

 _You’d be no fun dead,_ fake Seokmin says, but he’s smiling the whole time.

 

All you’ve got to do is jump. That’s all there is to it. Seungkwan throws himself from one train to the next and wonders how many it’ll take until someone asks if he’s okay.

 

 

Seokmin wears his hair slicked back in the summer and Soonyoung’s got about three empty jars of hair gel to prove it. Seungkwan has a job at some advertising agency and he slips the two of them free samples of hair products when he can.

 

They’re grateful. So, they drag him to movie nights every Thursday and try to hook him up with Mingyu every other week.

 

It’s a wonder they don’t know he’s in love with them, he’s done just about everything a boy can do to express himself. Well, aside from talking.

 

“Say something that’s not one syllable.” Seokmin pokes one of Seungkwan’s cheeks

 

“Okay.”

 

He gets a thump on the shoulder from Soonyoung for that one. It doesn’t come without laughter.

 

It’s impossible to count the times they’ve ended up like this: Seokmin and Soonyoung on either side of Seungkwan with their arms tangled up around Seungkwan’s neck, his midsection, his heart.

 

They have to know what they’re doing. Sometimes, when it gets Seungkwan what he wants, he doesn’t mind the teasing.

 

“Seungkwan needs a shower,” Soonyoung whines, loud and abrasive right into Seungkwan’s ear. Seokmin pulls Seungkwan closer to his chest and he can feel the laughter that rolls through Seokmin’s body.

 

“Wow, thanks,” Seungkwan grumbles, mouth obstructed by the presence of Soonyoung’s shoulder. “I took one this morning.”

 

“What do you think, Seokmin?” Soonyoung leans over Seungkwan to press a kiss to Seokmin’s cheek and whisper something Seungkwan doesn’t catch.

 

They do that a lot. And Seungkwan would mind if it didn’t always land one of them half sprawled out across his lap.

 

“I think I need a shower, too,” Seokmin says after a beat. “We can take one together.”

 

Seungkwan chokes on air.

 

 

The first time Seokmin washes Seungkwan’s hair, the boy is shaking right out of his skin, is drowning. And Soonyoung has his chin on the lip of the tub.

 

The worst part about it isn’t even Seokmin’s hands. The worst part is that the running water is the loudest thing in the room, that Seokmin’s legs appear distorted in the ripples. Soonyoung winks deftly and Seungkwan is aware that there is some aspect of this he is incapable of grasping.

 

One of them has their fingers tangled in Seungkwan’s ribs, working the knots out. The other presses a kiss to Seungkwan’s shoulder, close mouthed and chaste.

 

Seungkwan thinks it’s Seokmin’s hands that run their way over every bump in his spinal cord, Seokmin that pulls back the curtains. He feels very much like his organs are on display.

 

They used to do something like this when they were young and fucking stupid. When Soonyoung would get his times-tables wrong and Seokmin would play with broken scissors and Seungkwan would just exist.

 

This is: a lesson in nostalgia, a three headed monster reforming once more.

 

There are words on the tip of Seungkwan’s tongue, the same ones that have been burned into his intestines for years.

 

There is a need to blur the line between fiction and reality. There’s a question hanging in the air, Seungkwan just needs someone to do something about it, to let him know that this whole time he’s been chasing smoke.

 

 _We never loved you_ , fake Seokmin says through the smog.

 

Real Seokmin moves his hand over Seungkwan’s chest and turns him around.

 

“Hi,” Seokmin says, the smile on his face blinding, suffocating.

 

Soonyoung has a hand on Seungkwan’s damp skin, fingers skittering up and down his arm, never staying still for long.

 

“Hi,” Seungkwan mumbles back.

 

Seokmin’s veins are on display, his chest heaving with every breath. Seungkwan realizes he’s boxed in, that he’s got walls on all sides and they’re inching closer with every passing second. Slow moving, Seokmin brings a hand up to the side of Seungkwan’s head, tangles his fingers there like he’s trying to do something about the soap. They all know he’s not.

 

It’s Soonyoung who breaks first.

 

“Do it already,” he hisses.

 

_Jump._

 

So, Seungkwan does.

 

**Author's Note:**

> a side note: train surfing is like super dangerous i cant believe i had seungkwan doin that im sorry my boy
> 
> thanks for reading!! please let me know what you thought if ud like to!
> 
> u can catch me on twt @booseoks !!


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